Garth whirled. A man had emerged from a cavern-mouth nearby, a short, slight man with white hair and a lined, tired face. He ran forward, his ragged garments flapping, his eyes shining. Garth said, in a voice like a prayer, "Doc Willard. _You're alive!_" VIII Willard gripped his friend's hands. "Alive, yes. If you can call it that. I've been living for only one thing. I knew you'd come back, with help, if you got through. And you did!" The cavern was spinning around Garth. He braced himself, staring at the man. "Doc! I've been going crazy for five years. I thought I--I'd killed you." Willard stared. "Killed me? But--" "That altar!" The words tumbled out of Garth's mouth. "I couldn't remember much. That damned Noctoli poison--I lost my memory. But I knew I'd tried to knife you while you were stretched out on an altar--" Sympathy showed in Willard's eyes. "Good Lord, Ed! And you could remember only that? You must have gone through hell." "I did. I didn't know what--" "But we planned it. The whole thing. A fake ceremony, to impress the Zarno and give us a chance to escape. They thought we _might_ be messengers from their gods--the Ancients--and we told 'em so, after we'd learned their language. The sacrifice--it was a fake, that's all. And it went through as we planned. You pretended to stab me, and while the Zarno were bowing and genuflecting, we got away. At least you did. They recaptured me." Garth shook his head. "Tell me. I don't know, really." Willard glanced at the Earthmen, curiosity in his eyes. "You've a bit of explaining to do yourself, Ed. Are they--Noctoli?" "Yeah. I worked out an antitoxin, but it was stale." Quickly Garth explained what had happened. "I see. Well--got a cigaret?" Willard sucked the smoke luxuriously into his lungs. "That's good. Five years since I had one of these. Sit down and let's talk. No chairs, but try the floor." "Okay. What happened to you?" "Nothing much. When we staged our fake ceremony--the Zarno are plenty religious--I headed for that little black temple in the forest. Know the place?" "Yeah. That's where they caught us." "Well, it leads to freedom. There's an underground tunnel that takes you out in a camouflaged hangar. The Ancients had antigravity. I found out later, and their flying-boats were hidden there. They're still good, Ed. They still work. I'd have got away if the Zarno hadn't been right on my heels." "So?" Willard nodded. "The controls are easy. A couple of push-buttons and a steering-lever. I'd got a few feet off the ground when a couple of Zarno jumped into the boat with me. They heaved me out and followed. The flying-boat went off to Mars or somewhere, I suppose--it kept on going straight up. But there are others. Only I've never been able to get at them. If I could have, I'd have headed for Oretown, pronto." Garth's eyes were glowing. "If we could reach that hangar, Doc, we could escape--all of us."